Taxes

I've just about had enough. I always heard about taxes in negative terms while growing up, but I never really understood. I mean, from my end, I didn't do a thing AND I would get a surprise check in the mail. Well, those fairy-tale thoughts of the IRS have ended. I am officially an adult, and with that comes the obligation to hate tax season. You see, I don't know a thing about taxes. And my parents don't either, which is why they've always just taken all of our W-2's to some man in the city who would fix us up all nice, tell us where to sign, and then send them out. It was pure bliss. Well, as I looked to doing taxes for the first time, I decided that, by golly, I was going to learn how to do them myself. I mean, it should be easy this early in life, right? It's not like we have a house, any property, any investments, or any of that stuff that's supposed to make it really hard, but it still has been a challenge and I'm beginning to wonder if it's been worth it.

First of all, I got married last year, so Joy and I are filing jointly. Sounds good so far, right? Well, it gets complicated when the states get involved. I was a part-time resident of Ohio and a part-time resident of Illinois. So I've been on the phone several times with each of those states, trying to figure out what to check, where to sign, what form to fill out, and really, what numbers to put on that form once I find it. Although we are federally joint, we are filing "married but separate" in Illinois, putting all of Joy's stuff on her's and all of mine on mine with an added form for part-time residency. I thought that would work for Ohio too, but alas, they are different from Illinois and if you file your federal jointly, then you have no choice but to file Ohio jointly as well. And yes, you better believe there is another form for my part-time residency stuff. I'm actually getting to the point where I think I understand what's happening and am not too afraid that the IRS is going to track me down. At least I can prove that I took the effort to do everything right. Now I have just two small hurdles left: Indiana and Local Tax. Joy got a tiny check for doing something at Taylor, so we haven't figured what to do with that W-2 yet and Ohio does local tax and no one has a clue as to what to do with that. I think I might just ignore them both and hope it doesn't catch up with me at some point.

I will be pleased when this is all over. And yes, when that check comes (or more accurately, that direct deposit comes...), I will be glad of the work, but still, it just plain aint very fun. But this is grown-up land and I don't want to go to any man in the city.